Egypt's main Islamist coalition that opposes the Egyptian military's removal of former President Mohamed Morsi on Sunday called off rallies that were meant to be staged in Cairo later today, citing concerns over security.

"Several marches in Cairo have been cancelled for security reasons," said Yasmine Adel, a spokeswoman with the Anti-Coup Coalition told AFP.

Adel told reporters that some of the other marches planned by the alliance were going ahead, but these claims were not immediately possible to be confirmed, according to AFP.

In the Dokki neighbourhood in central Cairo, residents took over the mosque that was planned as the starting point for the cancelled march, and put up a poster of a policemen who was killed in the clashes between Morsi loyalists and the Egyptian security forces, AFP reported.

Meanwhile, vigilantes across the Egyptian capital stopped cars with bearded people inside them and questioned them, an AFP correspondent added.